Canuck Ticket Renewal

So everyone and their mom has written a post about the Canuck ticket renewals that went out last week. Like many other bloggers, I am a Canucks ticket holder. Me and some of my friends (I know my grammar is atrocious some days), share a pack of tickets.

It is great fun of during the summer, usually sometime in July or August, where I have had to pay, in full, for a pack of tickets. This ties up the money for a couple months until the friends that I share the tickets with, pays me back for the tickets they will take. It's like a cash advance loan to the the Canucks, and makes it incredibly tricky when I was back in university trying to come up with enough money to pay for tuition, book and beer. This years was particularly humorous calling in from Florence while on vacation, half drunk at 12am, costing $3.50 cents a minute to make my call in time. The account rep that I spoke to thought I was a little crazy picking a pack of tickets without even seeing which teams were in the schedule.

This year things are a little different.

Playoff tickets are being bought, well, now. And you also have to decide to renew your 2009/2010 season at the same time. They gave you about a week to think about it. And as of some e-mail I just received, looks like they are giving you a couple extra days, but that may be because the packages were, most likely sent out late.

2 years ago, I remember getting a reminder e-mail to call to renew the night before my allotted call in. Only to call the next day asking, where was all the info packages, apparently they sent it late, so no one received it. Yeah, fantastic.

Anyways, this year, you pay for both your playoffs and your next years packages at the same time. We haven't even made the playoffs, and they are already asking me about next season. I don't even know what my team will look like next year roster wise, and already I have to commit.

They are also raising some of the ticket prices. Yes, mine went up. Not a huge increase, but an increase. Apparently 55% of the tickets will have an increase of up to 3%. Now, 3% is not a huge amount, but, given we are in a recession, it seems like a bad marketing move. Are we trying to copy Toronto?

But then I think about the 4000 people PAYING to be on a wait list for my tickets. They pay to be on the wait list? It's that damn supply and demand theory.

Now if we all collectively NOT renew, maybe the prices will drop like they did in rinks like in Tampa. Did you know that you can pay $20, for a ticket, a beer, a hot dog and a parking pass? No joke. I'm pretty sure you are making money on this deal by the end of it.

So would I give up my tickets now?

Nope. I like other ticket holders, are still holding out hoping that next year (I'm not completely sold on the team this year) will be the year that we win the cup. And I will be there cheering my team on. Planning the parade route. Wooooo!

They are changing this year's seat selection by making people go to GM Place to physically choose their seats. They say the "glass, netting and rink boards (will) still (be) in place for proper viewing". As if I don't know what the ice from the seats in GM Place look like.

I don't fully understand how this seat selection thing will work. When does this occur? Does this require me take time off of work?

So I renewed, not knowing what the team will look like. Maybe it will get blown up, repeatedly, and keep getting crappy trades, and end up like Atlanta (not likely). Or maybe I just signed on to another contract of the Sedins to cycle the puck for god knows how many more years.